I asked Robert Earl Keen, who first saw Being There at a theater in Austin nearly 35 years ago, why he loves the movie so much. He immediately cited its understatement. “So much is left to the audience’s imagination. It allows one to feel like a participant.”

When I joined the faculty at Texas Tech in 2001 as a tenure-track professor, the idea of merging my studio art, which consisted of paintings of daisies and powder boxes on colorful backgrounds, with the word research taunted me.

A quirky set of domestic snapshots blotted out with Jello, goo, fat, or baby teeth. These tactile, psychological fillers could merely be humorous play, but tend to read as potentially profound and personal.

Tomlinson carries a notebook with him at all times to capture the “cognitive dandruff” and “exfoliations” of his mind, a humble and lyrical way of describing the permutations of an active and prolific thinker.